Fine Print: I reviewed this novel for the Anchorage Daily News. Below is what didn’t make the article.
What I’m reading now: Still Water Saints by Alex Espinoza
Wisdom in book by (real life) Varian Fry, an American who helped artists reach safety during World War II: “You can’t take away people’s idea of themselves. Not at the last minute, when they’re facing a dangerous situation. It makes them less stable, less predictable. Everyone clings to some silly thing or other. Everyone seems to have one thing they can’t live without.”
What I don’t mention in my review is that I didn’t really want to like this book so it took me by surprise that I couldn’t put it down after I read the first line in the parking lot. It was a sunny day and the car was heating up, but I opened the door rather than go inside and finish my errands. Why didn’t I want to like this book? Nothing against Andromeda, who I’ve seen a couple times at readings and seems pleasant enough. Her book on renting public use cabins is my bible for cabin adventures and I have another book of hers on my shelf. No, it was more pure jealousy. I applied for a grant she got from the Rasmuson Foundation when I was writing my novel and needed a computer in order to work. I thought she had books already out so I deserved the money more than her. So petty, so true! I think some of the characters in her novel would appreciate it.
But I did like the novel, though the middle was a bit rough getting through and I wanted the narrator Feliu Delargo to be more political and emotional from the get go. Even death does not rattle him until it is piling up to his ears and even then he is too calm. He’s Spanish! Where’s the passion? It all goes to the cello, which we could see more of. And he could have some small victories.
I also liked that his hometown is named Campo Seco—dry countryside. And then there is the scene when the peasants take the bull. You’ll see what I mean. Ayayay.
Here are some more quotes that I want to share (all out of order and without permission from the publisher):
“ ‘Feliu,’ he (Justo) said. ‘We’re living in a time of messages, not art.’ ”
“The beast over there doesn’t know what’s coming. But we do. I recommend the middle road.”
“But you’re not middle—middle is moderate, Loyalist, prodemocracy…"
“No. The other middle."
“Which is?”
“Survival.”
“Duarte’s cello was a glossy caramel color, and the sound it produced was as warm and rich as the instrument looked. It sounded like a human voice. Not the high warble of an opera singer or anyone else singing for the stage, but rather the soothing voice of a fisherman singing as he mended his nets, or of a mother singing lullabies to her sleepy children.
“When the cellist reached a crescendo on one of the lower strings, I felt a strange sensation, both pleasurable and disturbing. It reminded me of holding a cat, feeling its purrs resonate with me. Listening, I felt the sensation strengthen, as if the cello’s quivering vibrato was actually boring into me, opening a small hole in my chest, creating a physical pain as real as any wound. I was afraid of what might fall out of that hole, and yet I didn’t want it to close, either.”
“After the cello came, my world both shrank and brightened, like a piece of wood burning down into red-hot coal. I woke, for the first time in my entire life, knowing exactly what I needed to do.”
Al-Cerraz: “I still think that motocars are the way of the future. It fascinates me. Is there any more important question, really, than what will last?”
Harcout, Inc. 560 pages. $25.
Read what the
New York Times printed.
The story is like the song we all know about the lady and the fly, and it is just as catchy. Maybe more so. Only it has Alaska-Pacific Northwest animals like trout, salmon, otter and whales. The illustrations by Reynold Ruffins are bright and fun and you can watch the lady’s belly grow and grow until she swallows the ocean. “What a commotion! She swallowed the ocean!”
